1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to printer systems and methods.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, printer systems are used in a wide variety of fields. For example, printer systems are used extensively on networks in a client/server environment for printing information forwarded from a remote terminal such as a computer. Printer systems are also used in a distributed network environment or with a stand-alone computer.
When a user desires to print information using the printer system, for example, the user generally programs a print job to include default or customized properties and attributes prior to printing. Then, the user controls the computer to send a print command to the printer system to print the information through the printing system. The print information can be the print job that includes print job parameters, print job attributes and other types of information along with the actual image to be printed. The printer system can use windows type software that typically includes various pages for displaying the print job parameters, attributes and other information so that the user can accept or modify the information prior to printing.
For example, the user can display a window showing job parameters that will be applied to an entire print job such a print job number and various types of paper stock to be used for the printing. Moreover, the user can display another window showing exception pages that display page level exceptions programming that describe the print job exception attributes to be applied to a portion of the entire print job, i.e., special pages in the print job. The attributes are “exceptions” to the properties that have been programmed at the job level, and can be created and edited by users in each printing production environment.
In conventional monochrome printer systems, the print job parameters can be displayed so that certain print job exception attributes of a print job can be shown on the exception pages. Examples of these print job exception attributes that can be shown on the exception pages are paper size, color and paper weight. Because monochrome printing does not involve the numerous job parameters associated with color printing, there is generally an adequate amount of space on the exception pages to display all of the desired print job exception attributes. However, color printing involves many more job parameters than monochrome printing and has exponentially increased the number of print job parameters and print job exception attributes available for a print job and page level exceptions programming. Likewise, there are many more print job exception attributes that can be controlled prior to printing, resulting in the exception page editing being a much larger task than in monochrome systems.
Thus, there is a need for printer systems and methods that allow a user to improve the management of numerous print job exception attributes on the exception pages in order to increase worker productivity and reduce page level exceptions programming errors. Moreover, systems and methods that improve exception page management by reducing redundant print job exceptions attributes that are displayed will eliminate a need for a user to horizontally scroll down a page to summarize the print job exceptions attributes on the exception pages.